Another disgrace

Another report into the sinful and immoral acts of the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland was published this week.

The Diocese of Cloyne, headed by Bishop John Magee until last year was under investigation for the last number of months. The report’s findings are that: The Vatican was “entirely unhelpful” to any bishop who wanted to implement procedures for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse in the Irish church; the response of the Diocese of Cloyne was “inadequate and inappropriate”; Primary responsibility for the failure to implement agreed child sexual abuse procedures lies with then-bishop of Cloyne John Magee; Bishop Magee “took little or no active interest” in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008, 12 years after the framework document on child sexual abuse was agreed by the Irish Bishops’ Conference.

The coverage rightly condemned Bishop Magee and his underlings. It notes that “the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, misled the minister for children by claiming the church’s guidelines for handling abuse cases were being fully complied with. It also found he falsely told the Health Service Executive (HSE) that allegations of abuse were being reported to gardaí. In fact, two-thirds of complaints made between 1996 and 2008 were not reported to the Garda [Irish police] and no complaint was passed to the HSE during this period.”

Similarly, “Bishop Magee is described in the 341-page report as ineffective and faulted for taking little real interest in the implementation of the guidelines on child sexual abuse for 12 years. He assigned responsibility to Msgr Denis O’Callaghan, who was ‘uncommitted’ to the guidelines, frustrated their implementation and acted in what he perceived were the best interests of the church.” While “Msgr O’Callaghan admitted that in some cases he became ’emotionally and pastorally drawn to the plight of the accused priest, to the detriment of the pastoral response I intended to make to complainants’.”

Even worse the Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, Sean Cardinal Brady gave the usual pathetic excuses. Irish prime minister Enda Kenny said “I think this is absolutely disgraceful that the Vatican took the view that it did in respect of something that’s as sensitive and as personal with such long-lasting difficulties for persons involved,” he said. “The law of the land should not be stopped by a collar or a crozier,”. One MP called for the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland to be expelled for the Vatican’s role in the hideous affair. Apparently “Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore met papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza over the findings of the report today. Speaking after the meeting, Dr Leanza said he was ‘very grateful’ to Mr Gilmore for the meeting. ‘I think it has been a useful meeting . . . he has given me a copy of the report, and I will bring it immediately to the attention of the Holy See'”.

Sadly this undermines the work that the Church is doing, slowly but surely to right these disgusting wrongs.